"The Roman Republic" existed from 508 BC when the Romans overthrew their monarchy and 27 BC, when Octavious became "Imperator Ceasar"-- the first Roman emperor in the Roman Empire.
Part of the legacy set forth by the Roman Republic was their government. The Monarchy was replaced by two "Consuls"--magistrates who were elected by the people and advised by the Senate. Checks and balances, anyone? This new form of government gave more power to the people to be involved. In theory, Roman citizens were sovereign, but as the Senate wielded more and more power, the flaws of this new system of government became apparent.
Our government today reflects the legacy of the Roman Republic with the idea of separate branches and civic duty, but Roman language could be considered as having had more effect on the rest of the world than did their government. Latin was their language, which evolved into the Romance languages (including French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, and others) "Romance" comes from Roman! Maybe I'm the only one who didn't connect those two...
Ovid's Metamorphoses, written originally in Latin, was not completed until A.D. 8. In it, Ovid traces the history of the world from its creation to the Deification of Julius Caesar using 15 stories of transformation. Written in dactylic hexameter, the meter of the epic, Ovid invited comparison between his work and Virgil's The Aeneid. Beginning with the ritualistic "invocation of the Muse," Metamorphoses tells transformation tale after transformation tale, each story connected by the theme of metamorphosis and love. Ovid's work was apparently very popular--over 400 original manuscripts have survived up to today. A lot of Ovid's stories are borrowed from Greek Mythology, which supports many scholars' belief that there is no such thing as "Roman mythology", only Greek mythology with a Roman flair.
Metamorphosis was preserved by manuscript, but the stories and morals themselves existed for centuries via oral tradition. Epic poems are better preserved on manuscript because unlike counting-out rhymes (which are highly stable forms of oral tradition and can be passed on for centuries without alteration), exact words were not always remembered perfectly. Plot, character and place description, usually remain pretty stable, but exact words did not.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
So much of the Western background and ideas can be traced to the Romans. I looked in a dictionary to get an estimate on how many words had latin roots, I gave that up pretty quick. So much of language is from the Romans it's not even funny.
ReplyDeleteYou definitely have a topic that is RICH in history and lots of interesting facts. Not to mention just the things that relate to the Latin language. I don't want to cover a topic that you might plan on going into, but it's pretty neat to learn how the Romance Languages came to be. I'll i will say is that it started out as "vulgar latin". Neat stuff. Cool Post Alyssa
ReplyDeleteWhen I read this I wondered why the Latin language sort of disappeared. Maybe you all are smarter, but when I did a quick little search I found out that the Latin language disappeared when Rome fell and the Dark Ages began. There were not many schools that Latin was taught in. Since the people who spoke Latin were separated, it was hard to maintain that language, and as a result, the language evolved into French, Spanish, etc.
ReplyDeleteLatin didn't disappear, it evolved, and because it was in a lot of different places, it evolved in a lot of different ways. Language is changing all the time. Even what we think of classical "Latin" was only in use for a short time. The Latin before was different and the Latin after was different. The Latin after that was even more different, and the Latin after that started calling itself Spanish instead of Latin, because the Spaniards wanted their own identity. In response to Murphy's comment, about 60% of English words come from Latin or French, even though English is generally considered to be a Germanic language.
ReplyDeleteRoman ideas definitely sparked a lot of the ideas that are still present to this day. You pointed out government and language have strong roots in Rome - so cool! Just like I said in my blog post, one of the most interesting things looking back at civilizations for me is the profound impact that they leave on society and just how much they leave their imprint in the future. The Romans were definitely some of the best at creating these ageless ideas.
ReplyDelete